Last weekend a friend and I got together for a game. He was playing his Space Wolves and I was playing Tau. We are prepparing for BOLSCON and doing a lot of play testing. I believe this is a great army and I can win with this list however I need help with my tactics. (Note:Sean is using his Dark Angels as Space Wolves.) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Deployment: Dawn Of WarMission Type: Annihilation Terrain: It was decided before that game that all terrain was counted as difficult terrain and granted a 4+ cover save. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Tau Turn One

This photo was taken at the end of turn one when both armys are deployed.

Movement: Prior to the start of the game I placed my Kroot in the mid field terrain pieces. At the start of the game everything else comes on in the center of my deployment zone. I wanted to take advantage of the two terrain pieces in the center of the board. It would either funnel his army into a rapid fire trap or slow down his troops to allow me to pick them off one at a time. I deployed the two Fireknife squads on the outside of the formation and the two Firestorm squads in the center. The broad sides were in position to shoot the center gap or up left side.

Shooting: No targets = no shooting.

Assault: Jump behind cover.

Space Wolves Turn One

This photo is taken at the end of Seans movement phase.

Movement/Deployment: During deployment Sean keeps everything off the board. At the begining of his turn He moves his units on keeping the wolf lords in the center of the board. There are two Rhinos on the right side with one 10 man Grey Hunter squad and one 9 man Grey Hunter squad with attached Rune Priest in each and one Rhino with a 10 man Grey Hunter squad on the left. Right side Long Fangs Squads run for position in the buildings. His formation tells me that he will basically run the Wolf Lords up the middle, the Rhinos will make a pincer movement around the flanks and the Long Fangs will punish everything that not in cover.

Movement: I move my battle suits out of cover to allow line of site. The Hammer Heads are positioned to allow front cover but allow them to shoot without granting cover saves. I move the Piranhas on the right and the Devilfish on the left to block the pincer. I moved the blue Kroot squad to block the frontal assault and moved the orange Kroot squad back to make a second line of defense. I jump one of the Battle Suit squads into position and in doing so fail a dangerous terrain check and put a wound on one of my own suits.

Shooting: I shoot the two templates from hammer heads onto the Wolf Squad and missile pods from two battle suit squads killing 9 wolves and putting two wounds on two Wolf Lords. The problem is that deploying so far back two of my battle suit squads were out of range.

Assault: Jump behind cover.

Space Wolves Turn Two

Movement: Moves and then runs his wolf pack rolled a 1 for run! The Long Fangs on the right move into final position to shoot next turn.

Shooting: He shoots the left side Long Fang Squad by splitting fire between the Hammer Head and the Battle Suit squad behind the flat roof building. The Disruption Pod prevents any damage to the Hammerhead and the Battle Suit Squad looses a suit to a Krak Missile. The unit passes the Moral Test and stay in place. The Wolf Lords and hound run a super two inches.

Movement: I move the Piranha up on the right to meet the Rhino. The Orange Kroot move back again while the blue Kroot are stretched out to get a cover saves from the terrain. The Devil Fish on the left side moves to allow the Command Squad line of site to the Rhinos

Shooting: Again I shoot most everything at the Wolf Lords. The missiles and templates kill another five hounds. This squad is really resilient because of the way Sean is able to allocate his wounds. The Battle Suit Squad on the left side immobilizes a Rhino and the Piranha fail to hit the Rhino on the right. (I screwed up and put Target Locks on them insead of Targeting Arrays. I decided to play the list as it was instead of changing up mid game. I have since corrected the mistake.)

Assault: Jump back into cover.

Space Wolves Turn Three

Movement: Moves and then runs his wolf pack rolled a 1 for run! He drives the Left side Rhino into the piece of Skull Terrain and unloads the troops. Both of his other Tac squads dismount from the Rhinos.

Shooting: The Rune Priest shoots his Jaws of the Wolf and kills 1 Kroot in the Orange Squad. His Grey Hunter Squad in the skull terrain rapid fire the Orange Kroot Squad who are granted a cover saves because he is deeper than two inches. I lose 4 however they pass their moral test and stay put. One of the dismounted Grey Hunter rapid fires the Blue Kroot Squad who go to ground and make 8 - 2+ cover saves. Not a single Kroot is lost to shooting. His Long Fangs again attempt to damage my Hammer Heads and Devilfish and either doesn’t hit or the Disruption Pod saves the day. His Long Fangs shoot five Krak Missiles at second command squad of battle suits squads who are not in cover and they die a horrible death. So now I'm down one commander with a plasma and missile pod and two body guard with the same load out. Ouch.

Movement: I basically begin to consolidate and withdraw. The Gun Drones move up to block the Grey Hunter Squads on the left side and provide cover for the two battle suits. The left side Devil Fish pulls back, the left Hammer Head pulls up to block movement of the Wolf Lords all suits face the middle to knock out the Wolf Lords.

Shooting: His Wolf Lords are finally within Rapid Fire Range so I shoot everything at them again. I kill the remaining 5 and 2 Wolf Lords. It sucks but one Wolf Lord with a power fist is left with only one wound.

Assault: I begin my shift right to get away from the Tac Squads.

Space Wolves Turn Four

Movement: He moves the Wolf Lords up the center and into my backfield. The Grey Hunter Squad in the skull terrain move two inches forward. The two squads on the right also move up to get into assault position.

Shooting: He tries Jaws of The Wolf again but is out of range of my battle suits. . He shoots a melta at my hammer head but does not do anything. The Devil Fish on the right is hit by a Krak missile but the disruption pod saves the day again. The Rhino fixes itself.

Assault: One of the squads on the right assault the gun drones. The second squad assaults the Hammer Head on the right. The Wolf Lords assaults the Broadside Squad and the Grey Hunter Squad on the left assault the Orange Kroot and the Piranhas. The Drones die, there was no damage to the Hammer Head, the Broadside team went first and put the second wound on the Wolf Lord. The Wolf Lord assaulted back and put three power wounds on the team. The shield drone made his invulnerable save but died because the suit with the drone controller died. The Orange Kroot die however the Piranha are good to go.

Movement: I continue to draw back to the right side of the board away from the Grey Hunters in the woods. I move the Piranhas around to get some shots on the Rhino behind the piece of skull terrain. And for some stupid reason I move the left side hammer head up. I was thinking I would try to kill the other Rhinos for some quick kill points as the game was drawing to a close. I moved my commander and body guard near the Wolf Lord thinking surely they will be able to handle him because he only has one wound left and I can shoot everything else at the Grey Hunter Squad on the right....

Shooting: I rapid fire the commander and the body guard at the Wolf Lord I inflict 3 plasma wounds and four missile pod wounds... he makes all of his saves. I shoot both battle suit squads at him making 5 wounds he makes all of his saves.... Now I shoot the smart missiles from the Devil Fish at him causing two wounds and he makes them both.... I know I can't expend all my shooting on him so I shoot the Devil Fish on the right and the Hammer Heads Burst cannons and the other Hammer Heads Smart Missiles at the Grey Hunter Squad killing five of them, the fail their leadership and break. I shoot the Left side rail gun at a Rhino and miss and I shoot the Right side rail gun at the Wolf Lord and miss...

Assault: Now I'm stuck. Where I thought I would be able to whip up on the Grey Hunter Squads in the last round of the game I still have this Wolf Lord to deal with. So I jump the Commander and Body Guard over him to block his movement and I choose not to assault....... I figure I could was going to lose the battle suits anyway I would lose them on his turn so he couldn't assault another unit on his...

Space Wolves Turn Five

Movement: Sean decides to move the Tac Squads to keep the pressure on. The Squad in the woods moves behind the Hammer Head for a melta shot. The squad near the small building moves up for a melta shot on the Devil Fish and the third Squad begins their march back onto the Skull Terrain because they are broke and within 6 inches of me.

Shooting: Sean kills the Hammer Head and the Devil Fish in the center. The Squad of Fire Warriors dismounts and awaits their fate. One of the Piranhas goes down to a Krak Missile.

Assault: My Commander goes first and does nothing then he dies to a power fist.... who didn't see that coming....

Movement: I dismount the second squad of Fire Warrior to lend in with the Wolf Lord. I move the Hammer Head around to finish off the Grey Hunter Squad on the Skulls. I move my two remaining jump suits in position to shoot either the Wolf Lord or the Grey Hunter Squad.

Shooting: I have to rapid fire both squads of Fire Warriors at the Wolf Lord to get him to die but he does finally. The Hammer Head and the Battle Suits finish Off the Grey Hunter Squad on Skull mountain...

Assault: None for me...

Space Wolves Turn Six

Movement: Sean moves up the squad in the woods to get shots on the Fire Warriors hiding behind the downed Devil Fish. The other squad moves up to try to shoot at the remaining Fire Warriors.

Shooting: The Long Fangs immobilize the other Piranha and the blue Fire Warriors loose two to Frag missile and bolter fire then pass leadership. He shoots at the battle suit squad on the right but they make their cover saves!

Assault: Grey Hunter Squad assaults the Fire warriors killing two leaving the squad leader and three others who passes their leadership test!

Movement: Not much to move. I push the Hammer Head out trying to get some quick kills on armor. The battle suits move into shooting position and the blue fire warrior squad gets back into the Devil Fish.

Shooting: I shoot the Devil Fish and the two battle suit squads at the 10 man Grey Hunter squad killing five causing a leadership test which they fail and break. The Hammer Head fails to kill anything again.

Assault: The battle suits jump away and the Grey Hunters kill all but one fire warrior who passes his leadership and stays.

Space Wolves Turn Seven

Squads continue to shoot and move back. Sean kills off the immobilized piranha and stun the hammer head. In the assault phase he kills the remaining fire warrior... Game Over

Score: Tau: 5 KPSpace Wolves: 13 KP

After Action Report: Well I knew this list would be a problem. Consider that the Wolf Lord Squad has 30 wounds it takes a while to get rid of them. I put a large number of wounds on them every round but what he does is puts the instant kill wounds on the wolves and the regular wounds on the Wolf Lords so that two plus save soaks up a lot of wounds before they die. The greatest part of his army is the fact that there are three primary threats the Wolf Lords, the Grey Hunter Troops in Rhinos and the Long Fangs. It's a challenging list to play against. I believe I screwed up by not deploying further back on the board and making him come to me. I think my target priorities were right on. I'm still trying to work on my Tau Tactics it's not a very forgiving army.

Thanks for the battle report. My main opponents are space wolves, however I've only ever faced the Wolf Calvary once, and can't say I've managed to work out a way to counter them effectively. I suspect careful use of movement blocking might be beneficial, however this can be very difficult against such a fast lethal enemy. A couple of questions:

1. With the Dawn of War scenario did you win the roll off and elect to go first or was it forced upon you?

2. Near the beginning of the game you lost out on some shooting from your suits as they were too far back. Later at the end of the report you conclude that you should have been deployed even further back and made him come to you (the kroot in the forward position). Do you think that running the kroot back towards your lines from the start would have helped? Do you find your HQ suits more effective at shorter ranges?

I won first turn and took it which is why he put everything in reserve.

2. I did lose out on some early shooting because of range. I have since reconsidered the fact that I should have probably shot the Rhinos and Long Fangs first then dealt with the Wolf Lords as they drew closer. With the Targeting Arrays hitting him up close was no problem. If I moved the Kroot further back they basically would have done the same thing just a little later in the game but they could have lent in on the shooting for a couple of turns. The weakness of his list is that it's a Triad but separately they can be defeated which weakens the whole. If you put the Grey Hunters on Foot they will be out of the game for a few turns. Kill the Long Fangs and you can spread out a little more. Once the Wolf Lords get close feed them the Kroot, drones and Piranhas. I've asked for a rematch we shall see how it goes.

I put a large number of wounds on them every round but what he does is puts the instant kill wounds on the wolves and the regular wounds on the Wolf Lords so that two plus save soaks up a lot of wounds before they die.

This is one of the reasons why the missile/plasma crisis suit setup is not a very good one, you're often going to allow your opponent to play wound allocation games. On the other hand, if you bring a plasma/fusion squad, all of your shooting ignores armor saves/FNP/etc and you're going to be getting kills no matter what wound allocation games your opponent attempts. Two full-strength helios HQ squads can do a huge amount of damage to MEQs within rapid fire range, even without markerlight support you average five un-savable wounds per HQ squad.

Other than that, I see two mistakes:

1) Your Kroot screen is deployed too far forward. Putting them isolated away from the rest of your army just gets them killed without really doing their job of keeping nasty assault units or deep strikers from reaching your important units. The key is to force them to assault the Kroot on the turn the would otherwise reach your lines (making them unable to assault important things). If they hit your Kroot squad on a turn where they can't assault anything else anyway, all they do is kill your Kroot and use the assault + consolidation move to get to your main units even faster.

2) Your target priority seems a bit off. In general, you have two priority targets: transports full of assault units, and long-range anti-tank weapons. Assault units without a transport can be safely ignored. Your most important units can move 12" while shooting (vehicles with multitrackers or JSJ-ing crisis suits), so infantry with a 6" move will never get into range to assault. Shooting the slow assault unit is just taking your opponent's bait: your firepower is used up against a tough unit, while the key threats advance into assault range or pick off your tanks/crisis suits from long range.

My experience with going first in Dawn of War has always been poor. Essentially this is caused by exactly what you opponent did. By modifying his deployment to keep everything moving on first turn he has neutralized your entire armies shooting for a turn. In a game that lasts 6 turns this equates to 17% of your shooting potential (ignoring reduced shooting potential through attrition in the later game). If you find yourself in this situation again you should seriously consider choosing to go second.

The Wolf Lord Cavalry are still subject to high quality fire as Peregrine has commented, however to get to the point of maximum effectiveness you still need to thin down the wolf pack. This is a volume of fire issue. I suspect massed pulse fire or templates would work well in reducing their numbers, at which point you can then finish them with quality of fire.

Careful attention to spacing is also important against a fleet unit with a 12" assault. It's important to ensure an assaulting unit doesn't get to take full advantage of it's assault range, and ideally only gains an extra couple of inches of forward movement from it's assault move.

Yeah those large HQ wolf pack combo's are nasty. I've yet to have the "pleasure" of facing one but I'm not looking forwards to it. The 12" charge range and fleet is NOT nice. The only real way to deal damage is, as you suggested, kill the wolf pack as once they're dead the wolf lords can't join together and then theirs no wound alocation shenanigans.

I seem to play Space Marines/Chaos Space Marines pretty exclusively these days and I've cut my teeth the hard way with them. I have a few suggestions that may be of use.

Long FangsThese really need to be tied up or destroyed as early as possible. There are a number of options for doing this, including deepstriking Helios teams and fast moving Piranhas. I personally prefer the deepstriking Helios option as it gives you the opportunity to wipe them off the board in one turn. This also has the added bonus of forcing him to spilt his force and move an advancing unit back to deal with the nasty surprise in his backyard.

As someone above rightly mentioned, pick your priorities carefully. Units that can assault quickly and anti-tank weaponry should be your prime targets early in the game. Having the first turn in DOW is about as welcome as a fart in a space suit. You could utilize the setup to your advantage, especially in DOW, to go second and either use a denied flank deployment or keep everything in reserve (or both!). This reduces the effectiveness of his force as many of his units will be unable to pick out a target in the early part of the game.

I prefer to go first in DOW unless facing a fast opponent in transports. By deploying on the middle line, you force your opponent to deploy on his baseline. You dictate his initial placements and if everything is in reserve you can move your suits to get a better shot on turn 2, or pull them back depending. As he is moving any infantry based heavy weapons can't fire at you, plus he is also subject to DOW spotting checks on his first turn so the troops you had enter are fairly safe, while your hammerheads and broadsides get the first full vision shot.

I once chased off a massive squad of Templars on turn 1 by having them fail a morale test and since they deployed on their baseline, they were off.

Thank you for the well-illustrated and succinct battle report, RavenGuard085. I’ve promoted it into the Field Experience area; hopefully, we’ll see more from you as you continue to refine your Cadre.

I edited your original post to tidy up a few problems; you had a size tag embedded inside a bold tag towards the end, which was doing a few bad things to the text, and you’d set a lot of your headers to size=18. Size doesn’t directly correlate across to font pitch here, and size=8 is pretty microscopic; you’re best served using the drop-down font size option in the post editor to select font sizes, but as a benchmark if you’re editing offline, size=150 is the next size above standard text out of the generic options. I tend to write my battle reports up in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste, so I’ve learned a few of the BB tags here by heart…

You commented on the tactics you’ve used and why you used them, and you’ve already spotted a few mistakes you’d made; Tau are a tricky army to learn to play, and the learning curve is that much steeper when you’re fighting an efficient modern Codex. The price of units in 5th Edition codexes is about 15-25% less than in 4th Edition codexes, so when you go up against 2,000 points of Space Wolves now, you’re effectively fighting anything up to 2,500 points worth of Space Wolves under the previous codex – so you’re at a big disadvantage to start with.

You indicate in the battle report that the Broadside team had at least one Shield Drone attached, but the drone(s) aren’t listed in the army list? I’m also curious about whether the Night Fight rule for Dawn of War scenarios was used or not, as you don’t mention it in your report.

Going into an Annihilation scenario with Tau almost always means you’ll have more Kill Points to give away than your opponent, which is another problem. It often means that you’re stuck trying to table your opponent for the win, because against fast-moving armies – and most armies are now faster than they were in 4th Edition - you can predict assault armies getting into assault on turn two, rather than turn one.

Given the vagaries of the scenario, I think you made the right decision with deploying the Kroot forward; you forced your opponent to deploy on his backfield, and gained as much time as possible from the outset to shoot as he advanced across the table. This deployment works against you in two ways, though; it virtually guarantees your opponent two Kill Points, and an army with assault units will use the Kroot as a movement springboard, assaulting the Kroot (which means moving further than just a move + run) and then consolidating past the Kroot when the Kroot break – another few inches of movement. You made the choice I would’ve made in this case, given that Space Wolf armies often have relatively few units in them, but you need to watch out for the disadvantages.

Given that you’re fielding two big units of Crisis Suits with twin-Missile Pods and Targeting Arrays, you’re looking at having a very good chance of destroying transports like Rhinos. I’m tempted to say that having three of these suits in each squad is overkill in the pattern you’ve used; without Target Locks, all three suits are limited to shooting at a single target, but given that you’re re-rolling hits at BS4, you’re basically looking at 5 hits per target per turn. If you’re fighting something like Eldar Aspect Warriors, that’s great, but if you’re hunting Drop Pods, Rhinos, Razorbacks and the like, that’s most likely overkill.

While your battle plan was flexible, and your opponent moved generally in the way you wanted him to, you had problems with target priority and the durability of your opponents’ units. The Wolf Lord unit is a big hammer unit designed to soak up fire, and it did exactly that – it pulled fire away that could’ve usefully been demolishing his transports, forcing units like his Grey Hunters to walk across the table and gain you a little more time. If you face a similar situation in the future, I’d be tempted to leave the Wolf Lords to your Pulse weapons or equivalents in the first turn, and go for destroying as many transports as you can with your Missile Pods. If you can get the chance to land some fire on a Long Fangs unit early in a game – Railgun Submunitions can be good here – it’ll often pay out in spades because each Long Fang he loses is a big drop in firepower for him; regular Space Marines can’t instant-kill Crisis Suits with Krak Missiles, after all. While his Meltaguns could do that, he needs to get them across the table at your suits first – leaving the Wolf Lords with a lot of targets to work through.

Playing at 2,000 points, I think you should consider amending your army list somewhat. You’re running a lot of Crisis Suits without Shield Drones or any form of invulnerable save, and that’s going to hurt you – particularly with so many big, cover-denying template weapons out there. You’re also running an HQ configuration that’s better suited for smaller point-value games, where you need HQ units that can mix and match between killing vehicles and heavy infantry. At this points level, you need at least one unit dedicated to killing power-armoured units or units with Feel No Pain. I’d be tempted to build two in; if you’re paying the points for your HQ to have a Bodyguard and you’re putting Targeting Arrays on them, you want them to be lethal against a particular target, and the suit configuration you’re using doesn’t do that.

I’d also be tempted to modify your Broadside unit; the SMS is a useful weapon, but you’ve got a lot of moderate strength and AP weapons already in the form of the SMS systems and pulse weapons dotted throughout your list. If you can afford to upgrade the Broadside units to use the twin-Plasma Rifle weapon and Multi-trackers, you’ll have a unit that’s still good at punishing heavy armoured vehicles, but which can also throw a lot of accurate, low-AP fire into advancing power armour type units – and don’t forget that if you can thin the screening units away, models like Space Marine Captains tend to die instantly when shot with a Railgun.